VOTING 

BY 

MAIL 


Is It The Coming Great 
Electoral Reform ? 


MORE DEMOCRACY PRESS 

104 West Monroe Street 
CHICAGO, ILL. 




“It cannot be a matter for surprise that the 
methods of election adopted in the early stages of 
representative institutions fail to respond to the 
needs of the more complex political conditions of 
highly civilized communities. The movement in 
favor of improved electoral methods is in keeping 
with the advances made in all other human insti¬ 
tutions. We no longer travel by stage coach, nor 
read by rushlight. We cross the Atlantic with a 
certainty and an ease unknown and undreamed of 
a little while ago. Means of communication, the 
press, the mail, the telegraph, the telephone have 
developed marvelously in response to modern re¬ 
quirements. This continuous adaptation is the law 
of existence and, in view of modern political con¬ 
ditions, we cannot permanently refuse to adapt our 
electoral methods to the more perfect organization 
of a progressive democracy.”—PROPORTIONAL 
REPRESENTATION, by John H. Humphreys. 


Copyright, 1922, 

(of the pamphlet proper) 
By Russell Thompson. 


A 3 ,15,^23 


ELECTIONS BY MAIL 

AND 

THE PLAN of EFFECTUAL 
GOVERNMENT 

A DIGEST, FOB THE BUSY ELECTOR. OF 

‘AN INQUIRY INTO THE FEASIBILITY OF HOLDING ENTIRE 
POLITICAL ELECTIONS BY WAY OF TUB UNITED STATES 
MAIL, THUS ELIMINATING THE POLLING PLACE AND ITS 
PARAPHERNALIA''—By Russell Thompson. 



It takes a volume to tell in detail the ambitious 
plan of “elections by mail.” In these few pages 
it can be sketched only lightly. 

It would be possible to hold entire political 
elections through the medium of the United 
States mail, and to hold them more effectively 
and economically than through the unwieldly and 
unlovely polling place. In doing away with the 
polling place and its cumbersome paraphernalia 
the registration place would also be superseded 
by a less embarrassing method of listing eligible 
voters. 

The modus operand!: Beginning with the tech¬ 
nical end, a little group of “by mail” enthusiasts 
who are also mailing experts of long experience, 
have devised a plan of holding entire elections 
by mail in lieu of the polling place—which latter 
is keeping so many busy men and timid women 
from exercising the franchise. It promises to 
be a “fraud-proof and fool-proof” system, ultra 
modern and mechanical, by which a special form 


1 




of folded, one piece 1 ballot would be prepared 
for mailing to elector (voter) in a single opera¬ 
tion of machinery—from the roll of special paper 
direct to tied bundles marked for each local post- 
office division. To be explicit, this machine, or 
rather combination of machines, would print, 
perforate, crimp, cut out, gum, number,* address, 
fold, seal and tie into bundles the ballots for 
each division. The local postoffice would untie 
and deliver the ballots, along with the regular 
mail deliveries, to the electors, who would mark 
them by a pencil puncture instead of an X, then 
seal and remail them (postage franked) on the 
same day in a near mail box . 3 The postal serv¬ 
ice would deliver these marked ballots at head¬ 
quarters in the same bundles. These bundles 
would be placed into another machine which 
would untie them, then unseal and unfold the 
ballots and feed them individually into a delicate 
mechanism which would automatically count the 
returns rapidly and correctly, somewhat as a 
player-piano is made to play notes by the record, 


1 Simplicity is the biggest faetor in any effective balloting system. 
The obstacle that more than anything else has held up postal voting 
so long has been the matter of the ballot format. The three-piece bal¬ 
lot system now used in "Absentee Voting" (two envelopes and ballot 
sheet, not to mention application and affidavits—courageous is the 
patriot who votes by the absentee system!) is out of the question for 
entire elections. It is possible even that the simplest enclosure form 
would be obstructive and unfeasible. 

2 With government control of elections (see page 3) it might be 
advisable that every registrant in the country have a number on the 
lists. While this might appear to be an infringement of the secret 
ballot system, it is but necessary to remember that an elector's number 
is only one in forty or fifty millions, among which, and with the me¬ 
chanical handling, his identity would be wholly lost, except: That in 
case of fraud or defection the ballot could be the more easily traced 
by the government. The oood elector would find no fault with this, 
even if the bad would object. It is possible the secret ballot is now¬ 
adays more a habit than a real necessity. No one has ever been able 
to explain what the secret ballot has to offer an independent and 
candid elector! There are even moral arguments against it. For the 
evil voter and "repeater" it offers a footprintless escape, and is in 
other ways an aid to fraud. In the weak-willed it encourages double¬ 
dealing. It is possibly a case where the word "secret" has not wholly 
thrown off the sense of sinister. 

3 The regulations would require that every ballot be remalled 
whether elector voted or not. An elector would be free to vote any way 
he wdshed, or not vote at all; but he would be under penalty to re¬ 
mall his ballot. An unmarked, wrongly marked or tampered with bal¬ 
lot would be automatically thrown out by tl^^jounting machine. 

PublialMw 

Wl 231923 


2 



the punctured ballot in this case becoming the 
record. So you see no hands but those of the 
elector and the mail men would be intended to 
touch the ballot from beginning to end. There 
are other special safeguards, too complex to 
explain here, besides drastic postal laws and 
government inspection and supervision. 

The mailists propose to supersede the regi¬ 
stration place by a form of “registration by can¬ 
vass," like the census is canvassed, an old but 
highly commended plan. In addition to its at¬ 
tractiveness to the elector it is really a form 
of going after him and her, a “go-get-’em” plan 
of increasing the registration. There are special 
arrangements for keeping the registration lists 
pure. 

Right here it would be natural to inquire: 
“How would the mail system supersede the work 
of the tally books, clerks, judges, challengers, 
etc., that protect the polling place?" It wouldn’t 
supersede them; it would dispense with them; 
they are unnecessary in receiving even an in¬ 
trinsically valuable letter by mail; then why a 
ballot? There is small question of a mail ballot 
getting into the wrong hands; but if it should it 
could be easily traced. The postoffice address 
of an elector is really a safer delivery than the 
polling place identification. 

Along with the move to postalize elections, 4 it is; 
proposed to have the federal government, in the 

4 The aims of the mailists are wholly Idealistic and patriotic; no- 
profit is possible to the planners, while cost of publicity is borne by 
them without thought of returns. Though plans are worked out cm 
paper no machinery has been completed by them and no attempt made- 
to obtain patents. In fact most of the units of the composite ma¬ 
chines are already in operation in one place and another and in a few 
cases have been patented for years. The task of collating and obtain¬ 
ing the use of these units, of making the liaisons and constructing 
the complete machines, of obtaining and protecting rights, etc., is too 
big a job for any unofficial group, as well as too uncertain. Only the 
government with its facilities could feasibly construct them, and after 
the mail system was adopted. A tentative mail system could be in¬ 
stalled without the machines, by letting out the contracts for ballots 
and counting returns by hand. But such a condition would not be 
fraud-proof, and of course not nearly 60 economical. 

a 



interests of the best government, take over the 
entire business of elections everywhere—all the 
country’s elections, national, state and local— 
and place their operation on a safe, sound, scien¬ 
tific and uniform basis—but, of course, to have 
nothing to do with what goes on the ballot. 
The compilation of the latter would still remain 
in the hands of the local election commissioners 
or authorized bodies. The government’s part 
would be purely functional, more so than its 
handling of the mails and interstate commerce.* 
A newly created department of elections would 
be necessary in Washington, with a branch in 
each state. The mail elections system would 
apply only to continental America, according to 
present plans. 

With this government control universal reg¬ 
istration would be advisable and, so far as the 
states could be induced to permit, universal 
qualification. 

Now for the rationale: What is the big idea 
of voting by mail? Why is it advisable? 

The spirit of the first is, in a line: “All gov¬ 
ernment by vote with everybody voting.” Am¬ 
plified a little it would be: “To find the easiest 
medium for the freest expression by every cit¬ 
izen on every question of government for every 
occasion.” 

While postal voting is intended primarily for 
city elections and mass voting, it applies with 
equal if not greater value to remote districts 
and scattered electors. The farmer and his wife 
are often too busy to lay aside work and travel 
to a polling place; for which reason the so- 
called “agricultural vote” has always suffered in 
volume and power. 

6 The business of elections, as the fountain of all government, Is 
surely a government function and not the business, as it appears to 
be now, or every local handyman and handywoman. At the same time, 
it must be understood that mail elections are not dependent upon 
government control of elections; the latter is only a suggested reform 
related to the former. The government while constructing the ma¬ 
chines for its own elections could construct them also for the states. 

4 



It is true that the polling place is a well- 
grounded habit with us, and it requires an effort 
to conceive voting apart from it. Yet it is essen¬ 
tially a small borough device, where the few 
eligibles gathered to poll their preferences. It 
did not have even the advantage of a printed 
ballot until the last generation. As an instru¬ 
ment for the great mass expression of modern 
communities it is both unscientific and inade¬ 
quate. 

The editor of a leading eastern journal works 
himself into a sorry passion over the suggestion 
of elections by mail, seeing in it only a “loophole 
for every species of political fraud” and the 
“complete breakdown of popular government.” 

It is surprising how much shallow thinking 
in general is applied to the factors of electoral 
science, if thinking is applied at all, and how 
perverted are its images, the big becoming the 
small and the small becoming the big. Even 
gifted economists everywhere discuss at length 
and in minute detail the various phases of po¬ 
litical existence and at the same time either 
ignore or largely miss the psychology of voting; 
at least its two chief factors: The motive of 
the voter, and, The depth of the motive. 

Is it possible to defeat the intent of an evil 
voter and force him to vote for good? Does the 
voter who accepts a bribe ever repent in the 
polling place and vote for good? Would a voter 
who was prevented from accepting a bribe be 
likely to repent and vote for good? Does the 
voter who promises to vote for evil intend to 
vote for good and hide his deception and men¬ 
dacity behind the secret ballot? Are there 
neglected corners of the Republic where bodies 
of citizens are: (a) forced to be voters, (b) forced 
to vote contrary to their best interests? Let 
the reader supply his own answers. Ours might 
not agree with his. 


5 




What is the depth of the elector’s motive? 

Sincere thinkers have objected: “If a citizen 
is not interested enough in his government to 
go willingly to the polls, of what value would 
his choice be if the ballot were carried to him?” 
A complete answer to this question, setting forth 
the many, many reasons why citizens shun the 
polling place, would fill pages, but would probably 
reveal everything else than pure lack of interest. 
Interest is relative, bound to be so in the inten¬ 
sive living of today, and the recurrent question 
is: “Is it worth my while?” It has been roughly 
estimated that the cost, in inconvenience, loss of 
time, etc., of voting at the polling place averages 
one dollar to each voter, divided between him¬ 
self/herself and others to whom he/she is re¬ 
sponsible at the time. Generally, a citizen likes 
to vote—is proud to have voted. Give him or her 
a ballot simple enough for a satisfactory scrut¬ 
iny, and uncostly access to it, and he or she can 
be depended upon to vote each time. Even to 
those willing to pay the cost, the sense of the 
futility of voting under present obstructive con¬ 
ditions, complex ballot, etc., has ten times more 
than lack of interest kept them away from the 
polls. The esprit of voting is accumulative, and 
vice versa. Numbers encourage Tttfmbers, while 
abstention encourages abstention. 

So far as the mechanics of voting are con¬ 
cerned the intrusion of fraud is dispensable in 
whatever system. 

What a bugaboo, then, is this “balloting 
frauds”—at its worst but a centesimal of the total 
of political corruption? As a matter of fact, all 
the really harmful corrupt practices, the “deals,” 
bribery, graft, log-rolling, etc., are perpetrated 
far from the polling place. A Tammany may 
thrive under the most fraud-proof balloting 
system. 


6 


A few hundred votes are malcounted at an 
election and there is an outcry. Seven hundred 
thousand electors ignore a vital election and 
there is scarcely a groan. Which delinquency 
defeats more the ends of good government? 
True, one does not condone the other, but the 
proportion is noteworthy nevertheless. It is 
doubtful if the total ballot frauds in the country, 
leaving out New York City, in a generation, 
would equal the total of abstentions at one Chi¬ 
cago election. The policy of huge, panic-built 
safeguards erected against a few leaks and 
frauds, when it results in obstructions or de¬ 
mands that discourage millions of the precious 
disinteresteds, is a penny-wise-pound-foolish one. 
It is the* same unwisdom of the above school of 
economists who would make voting a steeple¬ 
chase for the moral good of the voter. Aimed 
against the corruptionists it in reality works 
beautifully into their hands, and they probably 
know it. Until we can get this polls fraud 
bogy in its true aspect it will be difficult to 
experiment with a more facile medium of ex¬ 
pression than now exists. 

What is the function of elections? Merely to 
receive from the electorate a gesture indicating 
its preferences in majority form. In some of the 
Swiss communes—“the cradle of democracy”— 
this is effected by the holding up of hands on 
the part of a crowd of citizens. If we could 
obtain this gesture by wireless, or by some other 
simple and iflconvenient means, so much the 
better. Even exact figures are of little impor¬ 
tance where the gesture indicates a sound ma¬ 
jority. The great desideratum is: “A sound ma¬ 
jority out of the biggest and freest expression”; 
and out of such, it may be added, the majority, 
or plurality, is almost without exception unmis¬ 
takable. If an absolute majority gesture can be 
obtained more emphatically by mail than other¬ 
wise then the mail is the medium for it. 


7 


When looked at unbiasedly, the policy of be¬ 
stowing office and building up laws through the 
consent of a small percentage of electors, many 
of whom are “interested” in the practical sense, 
appears to be a weak and slovenly method of 
conducting government. Why all the bother 
over elections under such conditions? 


The recent spurt of interest in “entire elections 
by mail ” 0 may have been inspired by the success 
in most states of “Absentee Voting” by mail, in 
spite of its obstructive formula and its being 
onty a postal tail to the polling place. The real 
impetus may be found in more powerful sources: 
(a) The admirable advance in scientific service 
of the U. S. mails; (b) The desire of enfran¬ 
chised women for a plan to replace the uninvit¬ 
ing polling place—which is keeping two-thirds 
of the women at home; (c) Dissatisfaction with 
recent legislation and the casting about for a 
practical medium of a popular referendum, with 
desire for direct legislation; (d) The success of 
mail voting in social and commercial elections, 
also in the so-called “straw” vote; (e) The wan¬ 
ing interest in voting caused by loss of time and 
work in going to the polling place and, by the 
same effect, the futility of voting. This apathy, 
of course, works into the hands of the “machine,” 
which is perhaps the best explanation of why it 
exists. Except in executive elections—those for 


9 The mail election idea is by no means new, but its bibliography 
is obviously limited. Postal voting was advocated nearly forty years 
ago in England by John Leighton (who twice ran for Parliament) and 
a complete mail voting system, with a clever form of ballot, was de¬ 
vised. Conservatism and the crude mail facilities of the day, how¬ 
ever, dkl not encourage its adoption, (Society of Arts Journal, Lon¬ 
don, 1 v. 86, pp. 20G-209.) Among American advocates Herbert 

Constable of Massachusetts in 1908 outlined in prominent magazines 
a complete mail election system. (Arena, Sept. 1908, v. 40, pp. 210- 
218.) In 18-09 the legislature of California considered a bill for pri¬ 
maries by mail. (California Senate Bill No. 24; intro, by L. B. Rose- 
berry, Jan. 8, 1900.) The Socialist party nominated its presidential 
and vice-presidential candidates by mail in 1910 (Socialist Party Na¬ 
tional Office, 220 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago, Ill.) Traveling men’s 
associations, with members in a few states in the hundreds of thou¬ 
sands (more than vote in some large cities) elect llieir officers by di¬ 
rect mail ballot (not proxies) every year. Others have Written 
offering meritorious plans and suggestions. W. J. Carr, of Buffalo, 
N. Y., has devistxl an excellent enclosure system for mail voting. 


8 



President, Governor and Mayor—the activity in 
voting is growing less almost with each election, 
so that government now more than ever is being 
ordered by the interested few. In the elections 
most vital to us, viz: the primaries and the pro¬ 
saic judicial, municipal and other multiple office 
contests, the presence of electors at the polls 
has often dwindled to the dangerous point. It 
is possible that most of our social, industrial 
and political ills may be traced indirectly to this 
delinquency. 


The mailists propose a renaissance of the 
Electorate . 7 Their program is: “Make every 
decent man and woman adult into an intelligent 
citizen; make every citizen a qualified elector; 
make every elector vote at every election.” 8 
The 1920 census shows over sixty million inhab¬ 
itants of voting age in the country, while less 
than twenty-seven millions (women included) 
voted at the last presidential election. So you 
can see there is a job ahead. 

“Voting should be a pleasure, not a task.” 
The mail method of elections would make voting 
so easy and attractive there would no longer be 
excuse for abstention. By it voting would be, as 
it ought to be, a pleasant, home affair, a family 
luncheon or dinner table affair if you will, where 
the ballot could be discussed and marked with 
ease and correctness and all in one household 


7 The mailists never use the misleading word ‘'people,'' as in 
"government by the people"; their big word is ELECTORATE in 
describing the governing source. Their second big word is possibly 
“precision"; they preach the doctrine of precise definitions and pre¬ 
cise methods in government, the abolishment of vague and halting 
procedure and indefinite statutes. "A sound and effectual government 
should know what to do under all conditions and be prepared to do 
it unfalteringly.” 

s The word "make” is here used idiomatically for "induce.” The 
mail system might attain the ends of compulsory voting without the 
compulsion. In spite of this the theory of compulsory voting is not, 
discarded by the mailists. Because by the mail system compulsory 
voting could function with the least hardship and opposition, and 
for tills reason, and to make sure of success in the point of numbers, 
it might be well to include it in the mail program. 


9 



mark alike if they so wished. An elector would 
no longer have to run the gauntlet of solicitors 
and ward workers to reach the ballot. Being 
busy would make no difference to a woman, for 
she would not have to dress and go out. Being 
sensitive would offer no obstacle, for she would 
not have to wait in a crowd. Being a wife and 
mother with a big home and babies to care for 
would not stand in the way of a woman’s being 
a good citizen and a voter by the mail route. 
No one could possibly “forget” to vote, for the 
mail man would remind him by leaving the bal¬ 
lot. And weather would no longer decide elec¬ 
tions ! 

In truth, by the easy mail system every elector 
would be eager to vote and w T ould insist on vot¬ 
ing at every election. It would summon into the 
political arena the vast and now silent cohorts 
of the “disinterested,” whose uncharted potential 
is the romance of politics. The result would be 
demonstration of the “overwhelming” theory of 
compulsory voting, to-wit, that if every eligible 
could be induced to vote the great total would 
“overwhelm” not only evil candidates and meas¬ 
ures, but all possible leaks and frauds. This 
answers the chief critics of the mail idea. 

In the further work of popularizing voting, of 
bringing the Electorate out of its hiding place, 
exalting it, covering it with honors and building 
it up into a vast and powerful army, the mailists 
propose to emphasize every factor to arouse 
pride in being an elector; to have the Electorate, 
as the governing source, become a sort of 
American brahmanate.® Further, they hope to 
co-operate with existing societies for citizen 
building and naturalization, and propose a free 


9 Hencs, there might he an “Electorate Day”—a holiday like 
Labor Day, with parade and special political and patriotic exercises, 
with an electorate button and badge and possibly an electorate ensign 
to hang out under the Stars and Stripes. Speeches and editorials 
on this day would bo expected to deal more with legislative measures 
and policies than historical patriotism. 


10 



mail course in citizenship and ballot scrutiny, as 
well as a government bureau to place before the 
elector all sides of proposed legislative measures, 
wherever originated. 

Now for the fireworks: With a vast army of 
educated, trained and willing electors to vote 
at every election, by the responsive mail system 
of voting, government by the interested few 
would everywhere come to an end. With a firm 
foundation in a vast and sound Electorate the 
structure of American government would be 
bound to improve. There are no really unsolv- 
able problems of government. Governing prob¬ 
lems are never due to lack of intelligence but 
to lack of disinterested intelligence. The struc¬ 
ture of our government is sound and adequate; 
it needs only a filling of sounder flesh. Under 
the vigilance and steady bombardment of the 
army of electors the fortress of political selfish¬ 
ness and corruption would be shaken—a little 
here today, a little there tomorrow—until it 
finally gave way and political righteousness 
occupied its place. Dabbling, amateurish, uncer¬ 
tain, mincing, argumentative, hesitating, floun¬ 
dering, bloc-bound methods of legislation would 
give place to precise, scientific, comprehensive 
and unwavering efficiency becoming the Ameri¬ 
can age and genius. 

The mail plan offers, if we want them: 

1. “Wide selection and sound election.” 

2. An inexpensive, swift and practical modus 
for the popular REFERENDUM on all major 
measures and policies of federal and state legis¬ 
lation. 10 By this instrument our legislators could 
keep in close touch with the Electorate and re¬ 
ceive its constant advice. The results in prompt 
and precise statutes would have a wonderfully 


“ With the working out of the mail elections plan, the Initiative 
would be inadvisable and the Recall unnecessary. 


11 





good effect on the county’s business, foreign 
relations and public morale. 11 

3. The purest form of “direct” government to 
discipline the wabbly representative form. 

4. A responsive balloting system to revivify all 
other meritorious political and electoral reforms. 

5. A beautiful form of direct primaries for all 
purposes. 

6. A Presidential primary in connection with 
the party convention to the end of more liberal 
selection. 

7. Elections at half the present cost, with the ad¬ 
vantage accruing to the taxpayer. 

8. A wide-awake and wide-encompassing Elector¬ 
ate, that of itself would prove the most unifying 
force in America and for Americanism, a popular 
fascisti, a real bulwark against dangerous radicalism. 

9. WOMAN'S great political opportunity. Twenty 
million more disinterested women marking and mail¬ 
ing the ballot would mean an evening up of the 
political voice and that woman’s would be heard as 
distinctly as man’s in public affairs. It would mean 
the sweeping aside forever of the unchaste, corrupt 
and selfish in politics and government. It would 
mean that the various reforms advocated for years 
by women, such as maternity aid, child labor laws, 
better marital status for women, the abolishment of 
war and its wasteful preparations, cleaner cities and 
better living conditions throughout the land, im¬ 
provement of penal institutions, asylums and alms¬ 
houses—in fact all the reforms aimed at by humane 
womanhood—would be quickly and surely started 


11 In the case of the “NRM" (National Itcfcrondum by Mail) also 
the Presidential election, the vastness of the expression (the proposed 
50,000,000 votes), the low cost, and the almost wholly mechanical oper¬ 
ation producing a great moral result, combined would prove an elec¬ 
toral classic, beautiful and thrilling and unparalleled in history. 


12 



toward realization. It would mean the placing of 
more women in both houses of Congress, and the 
possibility that some able woman might one day 
become President of the United States. 

10. EFFECTUAL GOVERNMENT. That is, 
technically and ethically perfect government. 

This is the presentation of a theory. Does it ap¬ 
peal to you? 


U 


SIDELIGHTS 

ON VOTING 

IF ONLY OTHERS TOOK IT AS SERIOUSLY. 

Mrs. - Asks to Take Ballot Home. Society 

women carefully ponder list before recording 

choices. Mrs. -, after much meditation over 

the pesky ballot, asked permission from Judge 
Nettleton Neff to go home “and con over my 

list.”.A maid in her black uniform 

and cap caused diversion when, entering, she 
spied a group of debutantes and her mistress, a 
young matron. “Beg pardon,” she courtesied, 
hastily. “I’ll be back later.” Speculation was 
rife as to whether she had skimped on her house¬ 
hold duties, neglected to take Fido for his morn¬ 
ing constitutional air, or, in her efforts to be 
strictly “new woman,” overstepped the bound ef 
democracy.—Chicago Herald and Examiner. 


POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.—There should be no 
poverty among the industrious and deserving in this 
country of tremendous natural resources. That 
there is such poverty is due to defects in govern¬ 
ment, and defects in government are due largely 
to the fact that great masses of the people refuse to 
take politics seriously, refrain from sober political 
study, and in instances even refrain from voting .— 
William H. Stuart, in Chicago Evening American . 


INDIAN VOTER. 

A woman voted for a candidate early in the 
morning during the township elections at Park 
Ridge. Late in the afternoon she dashed back, 
demanding the return of her ballot, saying, “I’ve 
just heard something awful about him!” She 
was still arguing when the polls closed.—Chicago 
Herald and Examiner. 


14 





WAIT FOR THE MAIL MAN, NANCY. 

“It would not do any good for women to form 
a women’s political party. We have got to go on 
trying to make men see that their political 
parties are absolutely rotten. The women must 
organize themselves into a powerful weapon 
against rotten male politics. English women 
know this. They are using their powers. They 
are more advanced than the American women. 

“The most ridiculous, silly people in the world 
ar^p men politicians. I do not know why it is, but 
when a man becomes a political official his in¬ 
stincts impel him to put on brass buttons and a 
large stomach. I have to snicker at them. Yet 
some of them think I am in Parliament in the 
capacity of a chorus girl. It is too funny.”— 
Lady Astor, New York Journal. 


THE BIG BALLOT. 

The Citizens’ Association points out, in a new 
appeal to the constitutional convention for a 
shorter ballot, the fact that at last month’s pri¬ 
mary the voters were called upon to select from 
170 names in choosing candidates from the fifty- 
six offices listed on the primary ballot. 

“Such a ballot,” the reform body declares, “re¬ 
duces the election to an absurdity, as it is man¬ 
ifestly impossible for any citizen, no matter how 
well meaning, to vote intelligently under such 
conditions.”—Chicago Evening American. 


YOU MEAN EVERY INHABITANT. 

“Mr. T.: Your idea of voting by mail is O. K. 
if you can put it over. But you ought to add 
compulsory voting to it. Place a poll tax of $10 
a year on every citizen, with a credit of $2 for 
each time he voted. It's an easy bet there 
wouldn’t be a non-voter left in the country. 
Especially if all he had to do was to mark and 
mail the ballot.—Mr. and Mrs. H.” 


15 






POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.—It is to the interest 
of the INTERESTS to make politics as uninviting as 
possible.—William H. Stuart , in Chicago Evening 
American. 


IT IS A SHAME 

‘'Thompson & Co.: I work in & loop office where there are 
nearly a hundred other girls. Last Monday noon a lot of us were gath¬ 
ered in the women's room and talking loudly about voting. It seems two 
of the girls had taken time off to vote before coming to work, and 
were accusing the rest of us of being cowards, because we didn’t. 
Xow tlie boss never says anything when we take time off to vote, 
but we all know very well he holds it against the girls who do. You 
bet the argument grew warm. We all thought it a shame there wasn’t 
a polling place in the loop where office women could be registered and 
run out at noon and vote. It would be so easy. Then I remembered 
seeing Mr. Thompson’s letter in the News about voting by mail and I 
sprung it on them. Some of the girls thought it was too easy to be 
true. I don’t know anything about the working of it, but I made up 
as I went along and gave it to them strong. Before going back to 
work we ail agreed that mall voting would be a good thing for office 
women. We all love to vote. ... C. B. M." 


“We may elect our head men by direct ballot 
or vote of a senate or by heredity or by 
old age or by alphabetical order or by drawing 
straws. It does not much matter. Perhaps we 
should get as good results from drawing straws 

as we sometimes do by balloting. 

For democracy is the coming into conscious¬ 
ness of the whole people; the slow shouldering 
of responsibility by the least citizen. Democ¬ 
racy is the people coming of age”—Dr. Frank 
Crane, in Chicago Daily News. 


Suggestions and correspondence invited. 

MORE DEMOCRACY PRESS, 

104 West Monroe Street, 
Chicago, Illinois 


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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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